Three Times Andy LauIf you seek the word “workaholic” at the dictionary, you´ll see Andy lau´s picture in there! I´m tired only by reading all the thing this guy does...maybe he has a secret twin brother or something?!

One: Hong Kong superstar Andy Lau has planed to finance a remake of "Five Venoms", by late martial-art film director Chang Cheh. The cast will probably include Edison Chen, Maggie Q and Lau himself, the film will be shot in english (?) with director Kirk Wong. Released in 1978, the original "Five Venoms" tells that a young kung-fu protege is ordered by his dying master to eliminate the evil ones among five of his previous proteges, known as the Five Venoms. Each of the Five Venoms has a lethal skill learned from a toxic animal. The young protege have to find and team up with the good one among the Five Venoms, to defeat the evil ones. Shooting would begin right after the Chinese New Year next spring.

Two: “Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon”, a US$25 million budgeted movie by Mainland China and Korea will narrate the story of general Zhao Yun's life story, and the role will be taken up by Andy Lau. Other actors includ: Sammo Hung as martial arts director, also will play Zhang Fei caracter; Maggie Q as Cao Cao's grand-daughter Cao Yin, and the lover of Zhao Yun and finally, Zhou Yu will be played by Leon Lai.The movie, directed by Daniel Lee, will start shooting in March 2007.

"Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon" is a dramatic chronicle of Chinese history from 184 to 280 AD, during which China split into three kingdoms: the Wei, Shu and Wu.Three:"Protégé” : In this action thriller, Andy Lau plays drug lord Jong who portrays himself as a businessman. His pregnant wife (Anita Yuen) does not know about his illegal drug business. Nick (Daniel Wu) is an undercover officer who has spent the last eight years penetrating the core of Jong’s drug sales ring and is working his way up to be Jong’s closest aide and “protégé”. Meanwhile, Louis Koo and Zhang Jingchu (as Jane) play husband and wife and are both linked with the drug business, with Jane herself being a drug addict. Louis Koo plays a drug trader and a heartless husband who even uses their 3-year old daughter in traficking drugs. In her struggle to quit drugs, Jane is entangled in an affair with both Jong and Nick.

Actress Sohn Ye-jin has received her first best actress award at the Asia-Pacific Film Festival, which was held in Taipei, Taiwan, for her role in the movie “April Snow”.

Sohn (“Lover’s Concerto”) acts opposite actor Bae Yong-jun (“Winter Sonata”) in “April Snow”, where she plays a woman who falls in love with another man while nursing her husband, who gets into a car accident with his mistress. The film’s director is Hur Jin-ho (“One Fine Spring Day”).

27 de nov de 2006

The winners list for the 11th annual Pusan International Film Festival (Korea):

Chinese director Yang Heng's debut feature, Betelnut, received the New Currents Award at the Festival, along with Malaysia's Love Conquers All, from director Chen Cuimei.

Betelnut follows the daily paces of two teenage boys in a riverside city in Hunan province - stealing motorcycles, chatting up girls and basically killing time in a backwater town where nothing ever happens.

Hong Kong actor, singer and producer Andy Lau was named Asian Filmmaker of the Year.4° World Film Festival of Bangkok Awards (October 11-23/2006)

Best Film: Hong Kong's Isabella , directed by Pang Ho-Cheung, focuses on a new-found relationship between a father and his long-lost daughter, who he initially picks up as a one-night stand.

Best Script: Seeds of Doubt (Germany), the first feature of young Arab-German director Samir Nasr, which won two prizes at the Cairo film festival. It centres on the effects of 9/11 on the marriage of an Arab man and German girl and is told with compelling intensity.

Best Cinematography: Climate (Turkey) by brilliant director Nuri Bilge Ceylan, screened at Cannes where his earlier film Distance won two prizes. Climate is about the break-up of a marriage, during which the seasons outside reflect the turmoil of the protagonists, played by none other than the director and his wife.

Special Jury Prize: 12:08 East of Bucharest (Romania), which won the Camera d' Or Award at Cannes for its portrayal of the ousting of Romanian dictator Ceausescu as seen through the eyes of two ordinary individuals on a TV talk show.

People's Choice award: The Banquet (China), the opening film of the festival.

The Produire Au Sud film work-shop, which consisted of six film-maker teams from Southeast Asia, awarded Best Script to the young producer-director team of John Babalu Matulatan and Lucky Kuswandi from Indonesia for their script In the Absence of the Sun.

Hong Kong star Stephen Chow upcoming movie "A Hope" (Chang Jiang Yi Hao), is currently been shooted in Ningbo, Zhejiang province. In the film, Stephen Chow plays a poor father who can't afford a toy for his son. He then decided to pick one out from the garbage, and the toy turns out to be from outer space, sending him off on an incredible adventure. "A Hope" is expected to be released in China next summer. (A)

"Diary" is a psychological thriller about the mental struggles of a girl (Charlene Choi, from the HK pop duo Twins) who creates her own realities in her diary. The movie also stars Shawn Yue (Initial D), as Choi’s boyfriend Ray, and Isabella Pang. Directed by Oxide Pang (The Eye, Re-cycle), Diary was filmed entirely in a house in Thailand. (B)

"Blood Vampire" is the live-action english-language remake of the hit Japanese animated film,staring South Korean actress Jun Ji-hyun ("Il Mare"), and will be directed by Ronnie Yu “Fearless")The $30 million production from Hong Kong boss Bill Kong and France's Pathe Entertainment is in preproduction. The live-action film is based on the Oshii Mamoru anime hit about Saya (Jun), a vampire employed by the U.S. government to hunt demons in post-World War II Japan. (C)

24 de nov de 2006

Wang Xiaoshuai, 40, is one of the most active figure among China's Sixth Generation Directors. His latest film, Shanghai Dreams won the Grand Jury Prize at last year's Cannes Film Festival. The director’s new project is titled Zuo You (Left Right). Inspired by a true story, Left Right is about a divorced couple that discover their daughter is about to die from blood cancer. They have to born another child together and use the baby's umbilical cord blood to save their daughter. But they have already happily remarried. The cast includes Zhang Jiayi, Liu Weiwei, Yu Nan, Tian Yuan and Cheng Taishen. The is being shoot in Beijing, and the production studio has planned to premiere the film at the coming Cannes Film Festival in May next year.

Chinese director Jia Zhangke’s (winner of the Venice Film Festival for Still Life) next project will be The Age of Tattoo. Based on the novel by Su Tong (Raise the Red Lanterns), is the story of a group of street kids in the final years of the Culture Revolution (1966 -1976), during which China was in chaotic social and political unrest.The director says: "This time I want to do a movie with strong dramatic conflicts, in a new way," Jia told The Beijing News, "fight scenes might show up for the first time (in my movies), but (the actors) would not fly around. It will only be like fighting among hooligans, with bricks and cooking knives."

Apple is another film from young director Li Yu after movie Dam Street, which won her several awards abroad. This movie tells about the bizarre relationships and conflicts between two couples. The idea for the film was created by Li Yu and producer Fang Li, aiming to shed light on ethical conflicts caused by differences between social status levels. Chinese mainland actress Fan Bingbing and actor Tong Dawei play the poor couple who struggle at the bottom of the social status ladder. Hong Kong Golden Awards Best Actor Leung Kar-Fei joined the film as the husband in another couple, who is also Fan Bingbing's character’s boss.

"Prince of Himalaya" is another Chinese production based on the tragedy Hamlet, by Shakespeare. Set in the ancient Tibet, Prince of Himalaya is actually closer to the original story than The Banquet (Feng Xiaogang's), another big chinese production. Co-written and directed by filmmaker Sherwood Hu (Lanling Wang), it is shot in Tibet with a full Tibetan cast, speaking Tibetan throughout the film. The prince is played by first-time young actor Pubajia, who was discovered by the director at a bar in Jiuzhaigou, located in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan. Director Hu later sent Pubajia to Shanghai Theater Academy and paid his tuition. The prince's uncle is played by Duobujie (The Mountain Patrol).

After the Election, the Exile...Hong Kong director Johnnie To's stylish new action film is Exiled, a 40 million yuan project, a loosely related sequel to To's earlier film The Mission: Exiled.Cast members includ Anthony Wong, Francis Ng, Simon Yam, Nick Cheung and Richie Jen. The creator of the two 'Election' movies returns with a technically accomplished, highly entertaining gangster drama. Set on the eve of Macau's handover to China in 1999, the film opens with a 20-odd-minute scene that is a self-contained masterpiece. This new work is less complexly plotted and lighter on social criticism than Election and its sequel. As usual, it mixes tragedy and deadpan comedy into a highly entertaining, action-packed,and darkly comic gangster flick.

The Chinese film After This Our Exile, a family drama by director Patrick Tam, stars Charlie Yeung and Aaron Kwok, who plays father for the first time. The actor had won Best Actor at last year's Golden Horse Awards for the movie Divergence.

Charlie Yeung and Aaron Kwok play an on-again, off-again couple with a son. The plot focuses on the awkward relationship between father and son after the mother abandons the family. The two leads have both been nominated for Best Actor and Best Actress awards at the 1st Rome Film Festival.

Awards: Best Director Award, Best Script Award, Best Picture Award for “Memories of Murder” at 2003 Chunsa Film Festival ; Best Director Award for “Memories of Murder” at 2003 Daejong Film Festival; Int’l Critics’ Award for “Barking Dogs Never Bite” at 25th Hong Kong Int’l Film Festival.

Bong captivated the hearts of moviegoers with his blockbusters “The Host” and “Memories of Murder.” He has created three full length films so far, with two of them receiving rave reviews from critics and succeeding at the box-office, and the third one having become the most successful movie in the history of Korean cinematography. But if you take a closer look at how those films were made, you will see that all three movies presented Bong with unimaginable difficulties, which intensified every time he produced a new movie.

Bong seized the opportunity to debut as an ambitious filmmaker with his first work, “Barking Dogs Never Bite,” when he was working for Uno Film, which was later renamed Sidus FNH and went on to become the largest film production company in Korea. That opportunity was presented to him by the company’s CEO, Cha Seung-jae. But the film’s script that Bong showed Cha was strange enough to perplex his boss. It was a story about a part-time university lecturer who begins to kidnap dogs in his neighborhood because they keep barking and disturbing him. Another main character of the movie is an eccentric girl who has graduated from a trade high school and works at a local district office.

Bong’s debut quite naturally followed his career as an assistant director of the movie “Motel Cactus,” which was produced by Uno Film. But in the beginning, everybody found Bong’s ideas preposterous. His second movie, “Memories of Murder,” also presented him with serious challenges following the failure of “Barking Dogs Never Bite.” Few believed in the potential of “Memories of Murder”; nevertheless, it succeeded. Everybody thought Bong would be happy to begin work on his next movie. But when the subject of the new movie was revealed, it was ridiculed: it would be about a monster. Nobody would even listen to what Bong had to say about the subject.

Despite all expectations, “The Host” evoked applause and praise at its debut at the 59th Cannes International Film Festival. The film drew the spotlight when Bong announced his plan to make a movie about a monster living in Seoul’s Han River, because films about monsters were not popular at a time when Korean cinematography was expanding its adventure genre and rapidly polishing its techniques. “The Host” aroused curiosity while it was still being made. That curiosity snowballed when the film received praise at Cannes, and reached its peak when the movie’s promotional poster showing only the tail of the monster was unveiled.

“The Host” showed the powerful result Korean cinematography can achieve when fusing drama with spectacle. The monster, the main reason for public curiosity, fully met the expectations of viewers, while the drama portraying a family’s efforts to find a girl kidnapped by the monster created tense suspense in the movie. Adding to the thrilling plot was the realistic depiction of life in Korea and black comedy that occasionally permeated the tense moments in the film, placing “The Host” in a different position from Hollywood blockbusters. “The Host” is yet additional evidence of Bong’s ability to find success against all odds. His secret probably lies in his confidence that he says grows stronger whenever he receives criticism. “The Host” became the most successful movie in the history of Korean film, and remakes based on it will soon be produced in Japan and even the United States, which had expressed worries that the movie was anti-American.

Bong has given hints about his fifth movie, “Different Trains,” which will be produced in English in cooperation with director Park Chan-wook (Park’s company, Moho), who produced “Old Boy,” as well as a multinational production crew. The new film is based on the French cartoon “Le Transperceneige,” which won the grand prize of the 1986 Angouleme International Comics Festival. It is a story about the last survivors of a sudden ice age that hits the Earth: two different trains carrying the survivors: one carrying politicians and high-profile figures indulging in drinking and drug use, and the other one carrying ordinary people who must scramble to find food to survive. Bong will make an omnibus movie this year in cooperation with renowned French filmmaker Leos Carax. Next year, he will produce a movie about a mother and a son, and afterward will launch the production of “Different Trains”.

Wong's experiments into the Hong Kong genre of martial arts cinema resulted in provocative piece "Ashes of Time". Now, he created a new cut for this film, hoping to bring this film closer to his original vision. The film, shot by Christopher Doyle, and based on a novel by the legendary Louis Cha, starred Brigitte Lin, Maggie Cheung, Tong Leung Chiu Wai, Tony Leung Ka Fai, Jacky Cheung, Li Bai, Carina Lau, and the late Leslie Cheung. The director's cut of Ashes of Time is set to be released in 2007, and will be handled by Fortissimo Films.